


I Will Look Out For You

by beeskneeshuh



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Missing Persons, Mystery, Slow Burn, the slowest of burns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 09:04:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17077373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeskneeshuh/pseuds/beeskneeshuh
Summary: When Aubrey and her family suddenly go missing, Chloe, Beca and the rest of the gang take it upon themselves to figure out what happened. Along the way, Beca has to deal with her feelings for Chloe.





	I Will Look Out For You

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first bechloe piece I've written, so I hope you all like it!

It started out as a regular day.

Beca had been up late the night before working on a mix, so when her alarm went off at 7 AM she was quick to hit the snooze button. So quick, in fact, that she knocked her phone off her nightstand and onto the floor. She didn’t have the energy to get it, so she just left it laying there. When the alarm started going off again nine minutes later she just groaned and pulled her pillow over her head to drown out the noise. After a couple minutes she heard a knock on her door, and then her dad was yelling something from the other side of her door about missing her ride to school if she didn’t get up soon.

She moved the pillow off her head and leaned off the edge of the bed to grab her phone. She turned off her alarm and when she noticed what time it was she jumped off her bed and hopped in the shower. The couple minutes between her alarm going off and her dad knocking on her door must have been more than a couple, because she had about half the time to get ready than she usually did.

After a quick shower she tied her hair up in a messy bun, brushed her teeth, and threw on a sweatshirt and jeans. By the time she got to the kitchen to have breakfast her dad and step-mom, Sheila, were already halfway through their food.

Beca sat down and ate her scrambled eggs in silence. The tiredness from not getting enough sleep was just starting to set in and she barely had enough energy to lift the fork from the plate to her mouth.

“Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Sheila teased, breaking the silence.

“Just didn’t get very much sleep is all,” Beca replied without looking up from her plate.

“Having a late night every once in a while isn’t too bad, just try not to do it all the time, alright?”

“Sure, I’ll try.”

Just as Beca finished her sentence there was a honk coming from outside, signaling that Chloe was there to take her to school. “That’s my cue. I’ll see you guys later.” Beca said as she got up and grabbed her backpack and slipped on a pair of Converse that were sitting next to the front door.

She heard her parents say “have a good day at school” at the same time as she closed the front door. She rolled her eyes but smiled, because they were so ridiculous, but she really did love them. Although she had been a bit wary of Sheila when her dad had first introduced them, it didn’t take long for Beca to warm up to the woman and now they were actually pretty close.

She walked across her front lawn and got into the passenger seat of Chloe’s car. This had been their routine ever since Chloe’s parents had gotten her a car for her sixteenth birthday. Chloe would pick up Beca first because she lived next door, then Benji who was a few houses down from them, then Aubrey and Jesse who lived a couple blocks away. They had all been best friends since second grade. Aubrey and Chloe had become best friends when they met in kindergarten, and so did Jesse and Benji. When Beca moved to Barden in second grade, she became friends with Chloe and Jesse, and then they gradually just became a group of five.

 ~~~

_Seven-year-old Beca sat down at an unoccupied picnic table. It was a nice day, so they were allowed to eat lunch outside instead of in the cafeteria. Beca didn’t like this arrangement, because at least when they ate inside it wasn’t so obvious that she didn’t have any friends. Classes all sat together at one table, so it was easier for her to blend in. But outside there were unlimited options of where to sit. So now she was eating lunch by herself and felt like everyone knew that she had no friends._

_She and her dad had just moved to Barden about a month ago. The school year was almost over, which didn’t help at all. Everyone already had their friends. Not that Beca was all that keen on making any friends at the moment. But the other kids wouldn’t care, they would just see her sitting by herself and probably make fun of her for having no friends._

_“Hi!” a cheery voice snapped Beca out of her thoughts. She looked up to see a girl from her class. Chloe, she was pretty sure her name was._

_“Um. Hi.”_

_“So, I saw that you were sitting by yourself and I was wondering if you wanted to come sit with me. And my friend Aubrey.” She pointed behind her to where a blonde girl, Aubrey she supposed, was sitting on the blacktop. Beca didn’t recognize her._

_Beca’s first instinct was to say no, she’s fine sitting by herself. But there was something about this girl that made it impossible for her to decline the offer._

_“Uh, sure,” Beca replied, picking up her lunch and following Chloe to where her friend, Aubrey, was sitting._

_“Aubrey! This is Beca. She’s gonna eat lunch with us from now on.” Beca was surprised at the “from now on” part but didn’t object._

_“Hi. I’m Aubrey. I’m in Mrs. Chesterfield’s class.” This explained why Beca didn’t recognize her. She was in the other second grade class._

_“Beca.”_

_They sat down and ate their lunch together. Chloe gushed about her new puppy, Theo, and Aubrey complained about some new girl in her class whose name was Amy and apparently was the most annoying person Aubrey had ever met. Chloe asked about Beca and where she went to school before, but just as Beca was about to answer she was interrupted._

_A basketball suddenly came out of nowhere, bouncing on the edge of Beca’s lunch tray and splattering spaghetti on her. It all happened so fast that she just sat there and stared at her lunch tray, slightly in shock._

_“Jesse! Look what you did!” Chloe yelled. This snapped Beca out of her shocked state and she looked in the direction that the ball came from to see a very guilty looking boy. She recognized him; he was in her class, too. They sat next to each other in music class._

_Suddenly Chloe was leaning towards her and trying to get the spaghetti out of her hair. Jesse appeared at her side to try to help, but Chloe shooed him away and told him to go get some napkins._

_“I agree to eat lunch with you and after not even ten minutes I’m covered in my own lunch,” Beca said. It made Chloe laugh, which made Beca really happy._

_“You’re funny. I promise if you decide to eat lunch with us again this won’t happen. We’ll make sure to sit very very far away from the basketball courts.”_

_Jesse returned with napkins a minute later and Chloe took them from him, telling him that they didn’t need his help._

_“We’ll probably have to go to the bathroom to get the rest of it out of your hair.”_

_Beca followed Chloe to the bathroom, glad that Chloe was leading because she didn’t know her way around the school just yet. When they got to the bathroom Chloe instructed Beca to lean her head down into the sink so they could rinse it out. Beca did as she was told._

_“You never got to answer my question because of the stupid basketball. So where did you go to school before Barden?”_

_“You probably wouldn’t know it. We just moved here from Seattle.”_

_“Seattle! That’s cool! Why did you move to Barden?”_

_“My dad didn’t want to live in Seattle anymore. So he got a job here.” Usually Beca wouldn’t answer these questions so easily, and she wasn’t quite sure why she was now._

_“Cool! Okay, I think I got it all.”_

_Beca straightened and observed herself in the mirror. The ends of her hair were wet, but there were no traces of spaghetti._

_“Thanks for your help,” Beca said._

_“No problem. You know, I think we’re gonna be really fast friends,” Chloe said as they walked out of the bathroom._

_And Beca had a feeling she was right._

_~~~_

“Good morning Becs!” Chloe said cheerfully. Beca winced. She wondered how someone could be so enthusiastic this early in the morning, every day. Because this was exactly how she had been greeted every morning by Chloe for as long as she could remember.

“Morning Chlo,” Beca mumbled.

Beca pulled her backpack up onto her lap to use as a pillow so she could hopefully get a couple minutes of rest on the way to school.

As Chloe started driving, Beca wondered how Chloe always managed to look perfect every single day. Her hair was loosely curled, and it looked effortless but Beca knew that it wasn’t. Her makeup also looked effortless but that wasn’t true either. She was wearing a short sleeved purple shirt with skin tight jeans and Beca couldn’t see her shoes from the way she was sitting but she knew they went perfectly with the outfit. It was very different from Beca’s hurriedly thrown together outfit. Her thoughts were interrupted by Benji opening the door to the backseat.

“Hey guys!” he said much too loudly. Beca would never know how she ended up friends with a bunch of over enthusiastic morning people. 

“Good morning Benji!” Chloe said to Benji with the same excited tone she had used with Beca a minute earlier. The two started talking about something school related but Beca tuned it out, hoping to get a few minutes of sleep on the way to school. Her plan was thwarted as soon as Jesse opened the car door.

“Guys!” he practically yelled. Beca groaned. “You will not believe the morning I’ve had.”

“Where’s Bree?” Chloe asked him as he closed the door. Usually Jesse and Aubrey waited for Chloe together since they lived across the street from each other, but Aubrey was nowhere to be seen.

Jesse ignored her question. “So, I had the most bizarre dream last night. All five of us were there, and we were standing on the edge of this cliff and there’s a river or something down below, and there’s this guy in the weirdest outfit and he had a weird name too but I don’t remember it, and he tells us that we have to jump off this cliff and then we all do. And right as I’m about to hit the water I wake up. What do you guys think that means?"

“Well, usually dreams about falling are…” Benji started.

“Hello! Where is Bree?” Chloe interrupted quite loudly, causing Beca to groan again.

“Well if you would let me finish my story, then you would know that I knocked on her door and rang her doorbell for like five minutes and no one answered. And it looked like all the lights were off. I don’t think anyone is home,” Jesse explained.

“Are you sure?” Chloe said, already unbuckling her seatbelt and opening her door, clearly about to go see for herself. 

“No, I actually just said all that because I was too lazy to walk _all_ the way across the street and I wanted you to do it,” Jesse said sarcastically, rolling down his window so Chloe could hear him, as she was already halfway across the road by the time he finished his sentence. 

“I think some of Beca’s sarcasm is rubbing off on you, Swanson,” Chloe half-yelled without turning around. Beca smirked in her seat. 

There were a few moments of silence that Beca was grateful for. Of course, silence never lasted when she was with her friends.

“Well you’re awfully quiet this morning, Becs,” Jesse said, leaning over the middle console to talk to her. “What’s your deal?”

“Tired,” was all Beca managed to say. She was still hoping to sleep at least a little bit on the way to school. She heard Jesse sit back in his seat.

“Do you have trouble sleeping, too?” Benji piped in. “Because if you do, I have a few tricks that can help you get to sleep.” 

Beca was about to reply but Jesse started talking first. “Dude, you can’t do a magic trick on Beca to help her sleep, that’s weird.”

“No! I didn’t mean a magic trick. Just, like, there’s some things that help me get to sleep and I was going to suggest…” 

“I don’t need help getting to sleep!” Beca interrupted. “I was just up late working on a mix. No big deal.”

Jesse and Benji didn’t get a chance to reply because Chloe was getting back in the car. “I used the spare key to get in and you’re right, no one’s home,” she said.

“Umm, dude? Don’t you think that’s an invasion of privacy or something, just walking into her house like that?” Jesse asked.

“We’ve known each other for 12 years, it’s not the first time I’ve just walked into her house,” Chloe said as she started to drive towards school.

“Here’s an idea,” Beca said, “how about we all just stop talking until we get to school so I can get a couple minutes of sleep.” 

“Beca!” Chloe said, ignoring what Beca had said. “Why aren’t you worried? Aubrey is missing!” 

Beca took a deep breath before sitting up in her seat. “Dude. She’s not missing. If no one is home at all, then her whole family is probably all out together. Like a surprise vacation or something. I don’t know. She’s probably fine. It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal?! How can you say that? Bree would have said _something_ if she was going somewhere,” Chloe said, and Beca could tell that she was genuinely worried. 

“Okay, okay. Just text her, dude. If she doesn’t text back by tonight, then we can worry. Until then, just stay calm.” Beca put her hand on Chloe’s knee, trying to reassure her. Chloe still looked worried, but when she looked at Beca, she seemed to calm down.

“Okay. I’ll text her when we get to school.” Chloe said, focusing on the road. The rest of the drive was quiet, which Beca appreciated, although she didn’t actually get to sleep. 

When they got to the school parking lot, Chloe parked in her usual spot. As Beca went to get out of the car, Chloe grabbed her wrist. Beca looked back at her. “Thank you,” Chloe whispered. Beca smiled and nodded, and they both got out of the car. 

The four of them walked into the school together. As they walked down the hall, Chloe looped her arm through Beca’s. If it had been anyone else, Beca would have shrugged her arm away, but she kind of liked it when Chloe did stuff like this. She wasn’t sure why. She tried not to think too hard about it.

Chloe only unhooked their arms when they got to their lockers, which were right next to each other. Aubrey was on student council, which was in charge of locker assignments, and Chloe had persuaded Aubrey to make sure they all had lockers next to each other. Beca grabbed the textbooks she needed and put them in her backpack, closing her locker. She leaned against the locker, saying bye to Jesse and Benji as they left for their first class, and waited for Chloe, who was typing out a text, probably to Aubrey.

Chloe put her phone away, closed her locker, and turned to Beca. “Okay, I texted Aubrey. I promise to not freak out unless she doesn’t respond by tonight,” she said.

“I’m proud of you,” Beca said as they started walking down the hall to class. “I’m telling you, she’s probably fine.”

“I hope you’re right.”

 ~~~ 

Their first class did nothing to calm Chloe’s nerves. Beca, Chloe, and Aubrey all had their first class together, which was government. When their teacher asked them where Aubrey was when he took attendance, Beca knew that meant her parents hadn’t called in to excuse her absence. She could tell Chloe knew that too by the worried look she gave her.

“Aubrey would _never_ have an unexcused absence, she hardly even misses school at all. Something is wrong,” Chloe whispered when the teacher started the lesson. 

“So much for not worrying,” Beca mumbled under her breath, but loud enough for Chloe to hear. 

“I can’t just not worry, Becs. She’s my best friend and she’s practically dropped off the face of the earth.”

“Ouch. I thought I was your best friend,” Beca clutched her heart, faking being hurt.

Chloe nudged her with her elbow, smiling. “Oh stop. You know what I mean. A person can have more than one best friend you know.” 

“Ladies.” Their teacher was glaring at them from the front of the classroom.

“Sorry,” they said at the same time. 

The rest of the class went by without the two of them saying a word, Beca trying hard not to fall asleep the whole time. Maybe staying up so late wasn’t a good idea. Not that it would stop her from staying up late again that night. 

The rest of Beca’s classes before lunch went by in a blur, struggling to stay awake (and failing to do so in calculus) the whole time. Chloe, Jesse, and Benji were already at their usual table when Beca walked into the cafeteria. She got her lunch and sat down next to Chloe, who was in the middle of talking.

“...go there after school and look around,” was all that Beca heard Chloe say.

“You better not be suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” said Beca.

“She is,” Jesse replied. “She hasn’t stopped talking about Aubrey since we sat down.”

“What’s the worst that could have happened? A whole family doesn’t just go missing. They’re probably fine,” said Benji, a hopeful look on his face.

“So much could have happened! Why am I the only one that’s worried?” Chloe practically yelled. People sitting in their vicinity stopped what they were doing to look over at them.

“Hey,” Beca said as she put her hand on Chloe’s knee for the second time that day, “you’re not the only that’s worried, okay? We all are, right guys?” She nodded at Jesse and Benji, who mumbled in agreement. Beca had to admit that something about the whole thing seemed off. But Chloe was worried enough for the both of them, and she didn’t want to make it worse. “Let’s just try to not panic unless she doesn’t reply to your text by tonight, okay?”

Chloe nodded but didn’t actually say anything and went back to eating her lunch. They were mostly quiet for the rest of lunch, with the exception of Jesse and Benji talking about some internet thing. Beca wasn’t really caught up on internet trends as much as Jesse was so she had no idea what they were talking about, something about SpongeBob. He had tried to show her some vine compilations and weird memes about the Bee Movie on YouTube but Beca just couldn’t see the appeal in them.

“This food is unedible.” Jesse proclaimed, gently tossing his sloppy joe onto his tray after taking a bite. 

“I think you mean inedible,” Benji corrected. “But you are right, this is pretty bad.”

Beca looked down at her tray and was very glad about her decision to get pizza. It was then that she realized that her hand was still on Chloe’s knee. She hadn’t meant to keep it there for so long, it just happened, but now it felt like too much time had passed to nonchalantly remove her hand. She ended up leaving it there for a couple more minutes until moving it to sweep some rogue hairs away from her face.

Although she wasn’t really one for physical contact, she didn’t mind it too much with Chloe. It wasn’t like that was weird for them or anything. Beca was closer to Chloe than she was to anyone else in their group. She had been her first friend when she moved to Barden. Sometimes Beca wondered what her life would be like if she had done what she would have done if anyone else had approached her that day and said she was fine and continued to sit by herself. It would probably be a lot less eventful. Chloe had a way of making everything, well, better.

After lunch they had choir, which Chloe had convinced Beca to join when they were freshman. She actually really liked it, but would definitely deny it if anyone ever asked. After choir was AP Chemistry, Beca’s last class of the day. That class seemed to go on forever. As soon as the final bell rang Beca was out of her seat and out the door. It had been a weird, long day and she just wanted to go home. 

When she got to her locker, Jesse, Benji and Chloe were already at their lockers, which were right next to Beca’s. Aubrey was in student council and in charge of locker assignments, so Chloe had convinced her to let them all have lockers right next to each other. Beca opened up her locker and started to get the books she needed. 

“Hey Benji!” Beca didn’t need to look up to know who the voice belonged to.

“Oh, uh, hey Emily,” Benji said nervously. Those two were ridiculous. Adorable, but ridiculous. Everyone seemed to know that they liked each other, except for the two of them. Beca and Jesse had made bets on how long it would take them to figure it out.

“So, umm, you know how we have a test in Psych on Friday? Do you maybe want to study together sometime this week? It’s cool if you’re busy or something I don’t…” Emily trailed off 

“Uhh, yeah, that sounds, um, that sounds good. Maybe on like Thursday or something if that works for you,” Benji said.

“Yes! I mean, uh, yeah, Thursday is good for me too. We could go to my house or like if that’s weird we can just meet somewhere or something.”

“We can do it at your house. Study, we can study at your house. I mean, if you want.” 

“Cool! We can just, like, go there after school or something, if you want.” 

“That, umm, sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

“Okay. Bye Benji!”

“Bye Emily.”

Beca, Chloe, and Jesse had been watching this whole interaction. “That was painful to watch,” Beca whispered to Chloe. Chloe elbowed her in the ribs.

“Oh, shush. They would be adorable together,” Chloe said.

“Yeah, if they ever manage to not be awkward as fuck around each other,” Beca retorted.

“Come on, let’s go,” Chloe said as she threw her arm over Beca’s shoulders, practically dragging her down the hallway. Jesse and Benji were right on their heels.

“So where are we headed?” Jesse said from behind them. Practically every day after school they went to one of their houses to do homework. More often than not, they got sidetracked and didn’t actually get much actual work done.

“My house?” Chloe suggested.

They all agreed and made their way to Chloe’s car in the parking lot. Beca got in her usual spot in the passenger seat and the boys got in the back.

As they drove past Aubrey’s house, Beca could tell that Chloe was trying extremely hard to stare straight ahead at the road and not at the house.

When they pulled up to Chloe’s house, Jesse and Benji scrambled out of the car as fast as they could. Mrs. Beale was known for always having the best snacks whenever they went over there, and the boys were clearly excited about that.

“Jesus, you would have thought your car was on fire they got out so fast,” Beca said as she got out of the car. She waited for Chloe to walk around the car before starting to walk towards the front door of the house.

“Give them a break, they hardly ate any lunch today.”

“You sound like you’re their mother,” Beca replied, laughing.

As they walked in the front door they could hear Jesse and Benji say a muffled “thank you” to Mrs. Beale in unison, likely with food stuffed in their mouths. The two walked into the kitchen to find exactly that. Jesse and Benji were sat at the kitchen island with a plate of pretzels and guacamole in front of them, their mouths completely full, and Mrs. Beale on the other side of the island looking very pleased with herself.

“Hi girls. If you want food you better act fast before these two eat it all.” Mrs. Beale paused as if waiting for something. “Where’s Aubrey?”

“She’s out sick today,” Beca chimed in before Chloe could have enough time to think about it too much. 

“Oh. Well, tell her I hope she feels better soon.”

“I will.”

Beca sat on the stool next to Jesse and Chloe took the one next to her. Jesse scooted the bowl of pretzels towards them and they each took a handful.

Beca looked over at Chloe, and she could see the wheels turning in her head, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why Aubrey’s family was missing but ultimately landing on the worst case scenario she could think of. Beca nudged her knee with her own.

“You okay?” Beca whispered, just loud enough for only Chloe to hear.

Chloe nodded, but Beca wasn’t completely convinced.

Once the pretzels had all been consumed, which didn’t take very long, they all brought their backpacks to the living room to start working on homework. Although Beca was typically the one to get their homework sessions off track, she thought that it would be best if Chloe was focused on homework so she wouldn’t have time to worry about Aubrey, so she kept to herself for most of the time.

After a couple hours Jesse and Benji decided to go home, both walking since it was a pretty short distance. Not long after they left, Beca got a text from her dad asking when she would be home and that dinner was almost ready.

 “I should probably get going, too, my dad wants me home.” Beca stood up and started to put her things in her backpack.

“Okay.” Chloe didn’t look up from whatever she was working on.

“Hey. Promise me you won’t get all wrapped up in this Aubrey thing, okay? At least, not yet.”

Chloe finally looked up at her.

“I’ll try.”

After dinner with her parents Beca went up to her room. She had gotten almost all of her homework done at Chloe’s, except for an exam in chem that she had on Wednesday, but she figured she could just study tomorrow and be fine. 

She decided that she would make a mix for Chloe. This whole situation with Aubrey felt weird to Beca and she had a feeling it would only get weirder. Which just meant that Chloe was going to be a worrying mess until everything got figured out, and the only way Beca knew to help that was with music. So she picked out 2 of Chloe’s favorite songs and went to work. 

It was around 1 A.M. by the time Beca had made the finishing touches on the mix. She gave it a listen all the way through to make sure everything sounded right, then downloaded the mix onto her phone so she could play it for Chloe the next day. She knew her morning self would hate her for staying up so late, but she didn’t care, as long as Chloe liked it.

~~~

A bell rang as Aubrey opened the door to a gas station, which was empty except for the cashier. She quickly made her way down the aisles, picking up various snacks and candies, then a few bottles of water from the refrigerator. She lugged all of it to the cash register and dropped it on the counter, try to keep it as organized as possible to make it easier on the cashier.

“It’ll be $22.54.”

Aubrey dug in her pocket for a 20 and a 5 and handed it over to boy, who couldn’t have been much older than her. She wondered how they got people to work at these places in the middle of nowhere. She hadn’t seen a house for miles.

He gave her change and she shoved it back into her pocket as he bagged her items. She took the bags from him and started walking out, but something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. It was the stack of newspapers by the door.

_Barden Serial Killer Death Toll Rises_

Aubrey stood there staring at the newspaper, frozen, for a few moments before being snapped out of it by the sound of the bell above the door chiming. She quickly made her way out the door before it closed and walked to the car, her throat aching from holding back tears.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr @beeskneeshuh


End file.
